Our House Is Finished!

Well...it took many months longer than anticipated, but our house in Idyllwild is finally finished! The house looks fantastic. It's grand, cozy, and green. The only thing left we're waiting on is for the LEED For Homes Certification and for the utility company to turn on our solar electric system so that we can start earning credit for the energy feeding the Grid. Dealing with bureaucracies (Southern California Edison) has proved to be an administrative nightmare, however! But it's hard to complain about or get too upset over: we've got an amazing mountain retreat that we can finally call our own.

Progress

The septic tank is in but not backfilled. Huge boulders to deal with, we almost had to use Dynamite! All Cedar walls are up and the 2x6 Douglas fir tongue and groove roof sheeting over the kitchen and dining area and the Master bedroom area is complete. Rough electrical is in. Main beams over the great room are up, all exterior stud framed walls are complete. The second floor is complete. The doors are onsite, the hickory floor is onsite, the electrical fixtures and plumbing fixtures will be here the first week of December.



The insulation has been delivered for the roof and the metal roof has been ordered. The main fireplace is complete including the stone veneer. There is a bit of stone veneer to finish on the front face including the hearth. It looks awesome! Rob believes that he has 3 more weeks to finish all carpentry on the house except for interior work. The Oak spiral stair is in production back East and should be delivered in “roughly” 2 weeks.



Energy Inspectors, our LEED Provider, will go up there when we are done with the carpentry and insulation work. That will be their first official scheduled visit.



We are not quite on schedule. This house has taken Rob our builder quite a bit more time that we were told it would take and we have had an early rain start. The product swells as much as 11/2” when it gets wet thereby throwing off the dimensions and preventing the finish blocks from fitting, so that has been a real struggle. Gluing and screwing each log was extremely time consuming as you can imagine. The house is coming out beautiful and we will start the hot water tubing and light weight concrete in 2 to3 weeks.





Over all, the project is going quite well and we have made several field changes that my parents approved of, primarily window locations, structural revisions, and a multitude of finish detail changes.

We submitted my drawings next week. Now that my drawings are 99% complete and that the finish schedule list, we can start the bidding part in earnest. If all goes well, Rob is considering forming and pouring your footings in January, it really depends on the weather. The actual footings are not that complex but we don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves and the weather turns on us.

Description Of Our Soon-to-be Solar Energy System

Things are moving along nicely with our roofing/solar installer, 360 Solar, based out of Lake Elsinore. We've designed a 4kW DC solar system for my parents house. The system is estimated to produce 6,608 kWh of power annually, which is more than we'll use for the entire year, enabling us to take advantage of net-metering and AB920, the new CA law that allows us to sell excess electricity to the utility company (a utility company actually writing US a check, imagine that!). Net-metering allows us to rack up credits for the excess electricity our system produces and supplies to the grid. So, for example, if we generate more power than we use in one month, we'll credited that net surplus amount on our next month's bill.

Our PV system will be applied to the standing seam metal roof and should look great! 360 Solar is helping us apply for the upfront solar rebates - California's New Solar Homes Partnership (part of the Go Solar California Program) - which will pay us $2.55/watt installed. That comes out to a wopping $10,094 cash rebate, or 40% off the total cost of the system. Couple these savings with the 30% federal tax credit and we're saving about 60%!

System Description:
Total System Size: 4.080 kW DC / 3.537 kW AC
Estimated Annual Production: 6,608 kWh
PV Panel Description: 30 X Uni-Solar thin film laminates
Inverter: SMA America Model: SB4000US (240V)


Uni-Solar thin film laminates


SMA 4000kW Inverter

Progress On The Main House!

The family met up in Idyllwild to document the progress that's being made on construction. So far the foundation and rim joists are in place, and in a few weeks the walls will be going up!

We've Broken Ground!

We officially broke ground! My parents never thought they'd see the day - the past couple of years have been marked by indecision, engineering tests, and permit delays. But all that's behind us now and we're finally Rockin' N Rollin'. Barring any major surprises, our home should be finished by Christmas (early 2011 at the latest).


Our builder, Rob Gray


Framing


Pouring the foundation


Crawlspace (huge boulder under our house)


Footprint


Lucy approves of what she sees

Cabin #2

Check out the floor plan and elevations for mine and Eric's cabin! We're really excited about how it turned out, on paper at least. The ~1,900 sf cabin will be LEED Silver certified, incorporating various green building features just like Mom and Dad's house. The cabin will generate its own electricity via solar power, use reclaimed/recycled and non-toxic materials, and have energy efficient lighting and appliances.

Structural engineering is happening now and once that's finished we'll submit the plans to the County for permits. We hope to at least have the foundation built before Christmas, in line with the build of my parents house, and wait for the snow to melt before commencing construction. This time next year is a realistic time frame for the cabin to be finished.

Christmas 2008 - Lucy's First Time In Snow

Solar Water Heating and Boiler Efficiency

I'm wondering if a tankless hot water heater really is the greenest option for our hot water needs. Maybe a hybrid solar hot water tank that combines solar heating with a high efficiency gas fired burner is a better option. This one made by Phoenix is a good one.

http://www.htproducts.com/phoenixsolar.html

The Munchkin Boiler is the most compact and efficient residential boiler available on the market today, and could be a good choice for our hydronic radiant flooring. It will modulate its firing rate to match the energy needs of the living space. This feature provides additional savings versus traditional single firing heaters. AFUE around 95%.

The Tree House Project (LEED Platinum House)

I toured a LEED Platinum house yesterday, which gave me great ideas for the design, materials, and systems for our house. The key will be finding sponsors to provide us with free/at-cost products in exchange for public promotions and house tours. The owner of this house received over $200K worth of free stuff!!

http://www.studiocitygreenhome.com/

Greywater Now A Possibility

We may be able to install a greywater system afterall. California, in response to the water crisis, has finally changed their building code to account for greywater systems.

The new code, however, does allow local agencies to opt out of the requirements and further constrain graywater systems if a) they hold a public hearing and b) pass an ordinance or resolution to do so. We'll have to monitor what happens in Riverside/Idllywild, hopefully they won't go this route!

For more information, click here.